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Avionics

Aspen Owners Survey: An Overall Thumbs Up

When Aspen Avionics announced its retrofit PFD system in 2007, we were impressed with the designs ingenuity and its workable price point. A year later, they were shipping and the field results were mixed: Capable technology but the installations werent going as smoothly as hoped and there was a higher-than-expected failure rate.New technology always takes some time to shake out the bugs, so now that there are hundreds of units out there in the field, we surveyed users to see if the reality is living up to the marketing copy. The short answer is: The Aspen Evolution system is generally performing as advertised. There are notable exceptions, but they seem to be clustered in the earlier installs, which is the trend we want to see. As we expected when we reviewed the Evolution system a year ago, the EFD1000 Pro version is the market favorite, with 95 percent of the respondents choosing that system. The EFD1000 Pro and supporting hardware is $9995. Thats $4000 more than the entry-level EFD1000 Pilot, but the Pilot cant interface with navigation radios or GPS.Price was the decider two to one over the next most popular reason for choosing the Aspen system. The system is approved for over 650 aircraft, but we saw the vast majority in medium- to high-performance piston singles. In several cases, part of the motivator was the cost of the alternative. As one Bonanza owner put it, "It just made sense. My Bendix/King HSI was giving me problems. The cost to overhaul and reinstall the 25-year-old HSI system was probably half of what this new system was going to be, with hoped-for increases in reliability and duplication of attitude information."

Jeff VanWest
Verified

When Aspen Avionics announced its retrofit PFD system in 2007, we were impressed with the designs ingenuity and its workable price point. A year later, they were shipping and the field results were mixed: Capable technology but the installations werent going as smoothly as hoped and there was a higher-than-expected failure rate.

New technology always takes some time to shake out the bugs, so now that there are hundreds of units out there in the field, we surveyed users to see if the reality is living up to the marketing copy.

Overall Success

The short answer is: The Aspen Evolution system is generally performing as advertised. There are notable exceptions, but they seem to be clustered in the earlier installs, which is the trend we want to see.

As we expected when we reviewed the Evolution system a year ago, the EFD1000 Pro version is the market favorite, with 95 percent of the respondents choosing that system. The EFD1000 Pro and supporting hardware is $9995. Thats $4000 more than the entry-level EFD1000 Pilot, but the Pilot cant interface with navigation radios or GPS.

Price was the decider two to one over the next most popular reason for choosing the Aspen system. The system is approved for over 650 aircraft, but we saw the vast majority in medium- to high-performance piston singles. In several cases, part of the motivator was the cost of the alternative. As one Bonanza owner put it, “It just made sense. My Bendix/King HSI was giving me problems. The cost to overhaul and reinstall the 25-year-old HSI system was probably half of what this new system was going to be, with hoped-for increases in reliability and duplication of attitude information.”

This can open a huge can of worms. In the words of one new Aspen owner, “Where do you stop when your technician comes to you and shows you the old wiring behind your panel? Do you upgrade your nav equipment to take advantage of all the Aspen can provide? It seems to me as though this is a no-brainer for anyone doing a major avionics upgrade to their aircraft … For someone to just go out and upgrade a perfectly good panel with good-quality equipment, it should take a bit more consideration.”

Cost for just installing the EFD1000 was difficult for many to break out as many folks installed the Aspen as part of a larger panel revamp. But we did get enough answers to see that the labor for just the Aspen install is running between $1500 and $5000. Simple installs seem to be averaging about 25 hours. More complex ones have the aircraft in the shop for two weeks. Legacy attitude and airspeed instruments must be maintained with the installation, but the removed VSI or HSI have been bought back by some installers for a customer credit. If youre turning in

Jeff VanWest